sub rosa
by ShinigamiForever
Summary: Ron lusts after his very popular roommate, Ginny lusts after Ron's very popular roommate, the very popular roommate lusts after the Slytherin prince, and the Slytherin prince crushes what he has under his heel. Slash.


Sub Rosa  
By: ShinigamiForever  
  
  
A/N: Completely written out of inspiration by Rhoddlet. Completely. So, uh, consider it an ode. POV is of Ron, then Harry, then Ginny. Originally written for my livejournal, but because I'm such a review whore, it's here too.  
  
In the morning, he comes back and you can swear that there is a smell of blood and salt-water tears in the air. You can barely breathe, holding in your air as he stumbles in, old and made decrepit by the insolent bastard with blond hair. If you open the curtains, you know that you'll see the cut lip, the scrape on the forehead, the bruised cheek, but the sound of his soft stifled crying in the pillow keeps you stunned to your bed. Like heartburn, and your heart is burning with all that desire stored deep in your stomach. Acid reflux now, eating away at your throat in the millions of ways it can. The sound of his crying. You fall asleep to it, even though your hand is frozen to the curtains, halfway through hell and more hell.  
  
In the morning, you wake up and the light is already streaming through the crack in the curtains like so many strings on a loom. He's in the bathroom already, dirtied by the light and pressed flat in all directions by the air around him. His forehead is pressed against the mirror and for the longest time you stand there, pretending not to see anything, his eyes stitched shut with black needles. His eyelashes. You cross your arms before you can't resist the temptation to lunge fingers at his cheeks. Instead, you watch him, and after a while, you stride foreward, the sound of your feet like the sound of his distant heartbeat. He starts away from the mirror, the remains of his steam fog-like. He gives you a weak smile.  
  
Wishing you could do something, his hand spinning circles as he reaches for his toothbrush, you realize suddenly that the handle of his toothbrush is green and plastic with his fingerprints. And because you don't want to see the tremors of his hand anymore, you reach for his toothbrush, shuddering as you touch the handle where he has touched so many times before. You hand it to him and smile, or at least try to smile as you ask, "Didn't get a lot of sleep?"  
  
He shakes his head, causing his bangs to fall over the scratches on his forehead, reaches for the toothbrush, and says, "Thanks." His fingers brush yours so gently and so coldly you almost melt inside. The want jumps into your throat again.  
  
***  
  
In the morning, you go to the bathroom, and Ron comes in, but Ron has left now, and you turn to the mirror, the taste of the toothpaste sweet and sick in your mouth, and you touch the mirror, asking yourself, asking out loud, "Who are you? Who are you?" and you hope so dearly that the person in the mirror will talk back and say, "Why, I'm Harry Potter, and this is how I am, and I am so totally not in love with Draco Malfoy." Okay, maybe not the last part, but you want to know what Harry Potter is like, and how Harry Potter acts, and how you, as him, should act.  
  
Instead, it just the mirror telling you how good you look, but it's not his voice, and it's not the same.  
  
It's just not the same.  
  
You've heard vaguely about anorexic people, people who starve themselves into oblivion, and you think, yeah, he's my addiction, he's my illness, he's what I try to keep starving myself for. Not starve, maybe, but keep aching for and hitting for and living for and breathing for. His teeth and his skin and his lips and his fingers, reprogramming your mind to want him and to need him and sometimes you curl up in bed, frightened by the need to ravage his skin and body. Frightened by the disease that has taken over you. The disease of him.  
  
***  
  
In the morning, you sit at the breakfast table and he's there, chattering on during breakfast, each word tearing through you as a pack of wolves. He's so terribly white and skinny, so tired that even you are afraid of watching his hand tremble as he guides his fork to his mouth, but you're petrified to watch all the same, forced to look at him and his water deep eyes. You think, my god, if I were him, I'd drown. But you're not him, and you can't even begin to think what it would be like to drown every night and every morning and every. Single. Fucking. Day.  
  
There's a huge bruise on his face. The twins, who are not stupid but don't think, ask, "Hey, what's with the bruise?" and Harry answers, without even flinching and without a pause and right on the beat, "I tripped going to bed." And Ron smiles weakly and tears his eyes away from Harry's bruises, because he's always been as observant as you have been and he knows that those marks aren't from stumbling. You both watch Harry's eyes drift towards the Slytherin table, and the truth is confirmed, but you let Harry lie anyway to save face.  
  
You tilt your glass of orange juice far enough so you don't have to see Harry or Ron or Draco or anybody through the liquid and you think, how appropriate, they're all drowning in my glass, even Draco, because you can see and you can feel, and if you tilt your glass far enough, the juice will cascade into your face and all of you, all of you, will drown.  
  
You put down the glass before it gets there, though, wipe your mouth, and try to keep your eyes away from the wasteland of hearts scattered all around you. 


End file.
